Sorry for the age verification.
Remember, Gladiator was rated R meaning it was restricted in the U.S. to those under the age of 17 (or 18) unless accompanied by a parent or adult guardian. Now that that is out of the way, here we go!
Because maybe you’ll be at Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 this weekend, or rewatching Twin Peaks before the season 3 premiere, and you don’t have the time to devote to watching Gladiator the way it ought to be watched. So here’s a few little reminders as to why it’s such a great movie.
The poster of the first video said this on YouTube (and if it’s accurate, I had no idea): ‘For anyone who is wondering, the reason why the Barbarians are chanting like zulus is because zulu was the directors favourite movie and decided to add their chant in as the barbarians.’
Commodus’ entry into Rome, as well as the style of the camerawork, brings to mind Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will and was something mentioned by a few critics. But my favorite criticism of all was from some know-it-all critic who proclaimed that the movie was historically incorrect because the Colosseum in Gladiator didn’t look like it does now (as in the year 2000). Uh, moron – that’s probably because the Colosseum is what we call “in ruins”. As seen here: 
When Commodus and Maximus were around it was probably in a whole lot better shape.
*insert eye roll and sigh here as we proceed*
The voice you hear saying “Maximus, Maximus the merciful,” is that of the great English actor, Brian Blessed, who played Caesar Augustus in the TV classic, I Claudius. In fact, the actor who played Claudius in the same series, Derek Jacobi, can be seen as one of the Senators in this same scene.
